Depravity

by Woodhead, Ian

  4

  As he ran back into the kitchen to get the guest's meals ready, Kevin decided to call this episode his Fourth Change. It wasn't quite what he had expected, especially since this was the first one directly initiated by himself. He threw the frozen meals into the six microwaves and set about organising the food masks, his special preparations that convinced his guests that they were not about to sit down to ready meals, as opposed to genuine home-cooked food, so proudly displayed on his website and brochures, available from his perspex display stand by the communal door.

  The mundane routine helped him organise his thoughts into a more respectable order. For a start, Kevin discarded the wishful thought that he could just not go down there for a couple of days, in the hope that she would get too hungry to care about having sex.

  He laid out the flowery extras, smiling to himself, his wishful thought refused to leave him, instead it mutated into something altogether most pleasant. Whilst taking the hot food out of the microwaves, Kevin imagined his sister bouncing up and down on that monster, whilst simultaneously chewing on Jeremy's toes.

  “Brush it away, young man,” he muttered. “Focus on the straight line.”

  The locals were obviously out of bounds. He lived on the edge of a small close-knit town, even with just a couple of thousand inhabitants, a missing local would inevitably bring fire and brimstone upon his head. Thanks to the disgruntled employees that he'd sent away when the money ran out, he imagined that his name was already mud. That tainted reputation would take some time to rectify. A situation that he had hoped to sort out next week. Right now, the possibility of finding enough spare funds to employ extra staff now looked decidedly slim.

  Taking somebody from the town just couldn't happen, and that was the final say. He wouldn't be able to cope if he just happened to look out of the window and saw a crowd of angry locals, marching towards his hotel, waving pitchforks and holding blazing torches.

  “Focus on the straight line.”

  Kevin had a high intelligence quota, one jewel that he had inherited from his dear departed mother. In fact, he believed that he now surpassed the woman in that department. He loaded up the food trolley and wheeled it out of the kitchen, wearing his best genteel smile, as the first of the guests took their place at their allotted tables.

  For the next hour or so, his problems could wait. Right now, the only Morris that mattered had guests to entertain and pamper. While they ate his bread and butter, he would conspire to find ways to empty their bulging purses and wallets. After all, what better way to replace the bread and butter with more bread and butter?

  Kevin let a bunch of meaningless compliments slip from his smiling mouth as he approached Mr and Mrs Steadford, travelling all the way from the other side of the country. They were on their way to visit the most splendid cave systems on the far end of the town. They had friends living on the outskirts but certainly didn't want to impose. Mr Morris had already counted them out, as soon as the irritating couple had spewed out this sugary bullshit on their first night's stay, two days ago.

  Why should he focus on the straight line? Perhaps this situation needed something a little different, maybe some lateral thinking was needed instead. He smiled at the two Steadfords, complimented the young man on his most excellent dress-wear and moved to the next table. The couple was bound to be coming back this way, all he needed was to invent some pretext to make them stop back into the hotel on their way home.

  His smile deepened into a genuine emotion as he reached the next table. Yes, that could work. His captives would wait a couple more days before he fed them. He guessed that Angela would have more on her mind than to eat. He'd feed Mr Steadford to the pair of them piece by piece and keep the female for himself.

  A very happy Kevin Morris distributed two more meals to Mr Johnson and Mr Martin. The two handsome young men were obviously in love. They stared into each other's eyes and held hands, much to the discomfort of his fellow guests. Kevin thought it was rather sweet. He thanked the couple and hurried over to his last three guests, a holidaying family. The woman was around his age and she was very pretty. Her partner had cold eyes. Kevin watched how he reacted whenever any other male stared at his female companion. He knew a potential troublemaker when he saw one. The sooner they were gone the better. He placed the remaining dishes on their table and kept his eyes on the family’s little boy, he guessed he was about twelve. He reached into his pocket, placed a chocolate bar on the table and winked at the boy. The child winked back. It was the little things in life that brought such joy. There was so much innocence in this tiny frame, something that he'd never remembered possessing. Kevin was about that boy's age when he entered the First Change.

  5

  The shape of that boy's face followed Kevin as he completed his routine dinner rituals.

  Even when the family retired to their rooms, after the man with the cold eyes had a quiet word with Mr Johnson and Mr Martin, The man known as Kevin Morris, just couldn't shake away that boy's face. The moment when he winked back at Kevin stuck to him like a piece of living Velcro.

  Mr and Mrs Steadford had left the hotel, explaining that they were going to try out the local pubs. This minor annoyance meant that he dare not check on the ones in the cellar. Caution came naturally to Mr Morris.

  He emptied the dirty plates into the dishwasher then pulled his head back, not that shocked to see the boy looking back at him. His tiny arms and legs were pushed against the sides of the strip lighting.

  The boy winked. Mr Morris winked back, rather amused at this rather bizarre hallucination. The delight only changed to unease when the boy's face melted like warm butter. It dripped down in long trails, until it reached his counters. He jumped back, inadvertently brushing against a stacked pile of white side plates. He let out a single low moan as the pile toppled over and the top five plates smashed across the kitchen tiles.

  Kevin dropped to his knees, still aware that the melting boy was still dripping over his back as well as the surfaces, but none of that mattered. The vision would go away, they always did. What upset him more than anything was that he now had to find even more money to replace the damaged plates.

  The melted flesh faded like smoke, leaving just the shattered ceramic scattered across the floor. He inched forward, slowly picking up every piece, wishing that he had the power to turn back time, and tell his earlier self not to pause and to saw off the boy's very large penis. That's when all the trouble started. That's when it all began to unravel.

  “You'll turn back time and only go back three hours?”

  The broken pieces fell through his numb fingers. Kevin slowly lifted his head, groaning softly at the sight of another boy of around twelve sticking to his ceiling like a human fly. This one was very familiar. It was him, right after his parents had freed him from the cellar. The ripped and torn rags of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt hung down, exposing his filthy stomach. The ingrained dirt covered up most of his scars.

  “Isn't it time that you allowed your real memory to surface? Your thread unravelled a long time ago, when those two monsters snatched you away from your true parents and locked you in that cellar. Your name isn't Kevin. You were named Andrew, after your grandfather. You don't have a sister. That girl still locked down there was a stranger, another kidnapped child.”

  Kevin snatched his gaze away, praying that this hallucination would fuck off and leave him alone. He hated these ones more than anything else. “You are not real,” he said through gritted teeth. “Stop telling your rotten lies and leave me alone!” Kevin laid on the floor, wrapped his arms around his knees and screwed his eyes shut, and waited for sleep to claim him, dreading the inevitable dream.

  6

  He wanted to know why the girl didn't want to touch him again. Of all the games they played, that had to be his most favourite. She sat on the opposite end of the cellar, facing the wall. He had no idea why she was doing that. The girl hadn't moved from there for ages and ages. She didn't move,
didn't talk, or cry. She just stared at the wet wall.

  He ran the tip of his finger over the cuts that she had made across his belly. The girl had used a very sharp stone to do that. It hadn't hurt that much, it really just tickled compared to the beatings that he received from his dad. She told him that the markings were letters and they spelled out his real name. The girl also told him that his real parents were dead.

  Pretending that Mum and Dad wasn't his real Mum and Dad was a fun game but he still enjoyed the other game better.

  Kevin didn't know what to do. He wanted to go over to her and ask her what was wrong. He daren't though. His sister scared him. She scared him more than Mum and Dad. Most of the time, they were okay, he especially enjoyed it when they fed them hot meat, but that wasn't often. Mum and Dad's moods might be hard to judge but at least he knew what to expect from them.

  They never sat on top of him when he was sleeping, and pinched his face. They never slapped him for no reason at all. They never whispered nasty stuff in his ear when he was trying to be nice to them.

  He heard the bolt on the door at the top of the stairs sliding back. The dazzling light would be next. He hoped it was food time. The girl finally moved her head. He heard a gurgled whimper come from her. It was such an odd noise. It sounded like she was drinking a glass of water. He stood up and slowly walked towards the foot of the stairs, listening to his stomach rumble. He thought they were going to feed them the last time, but instead Dad dragged the girl away then returned her a bit later.

  She reached out and grabbed his ankles as he reached the foot of the stairs. Big fat tears streamed down her cheeks. He didn't like this game. He pulled his legs away, watching Mum and Dad both come down the steps. He couldn't remember the last time when they both came down here. The girl then opened her mouth and he saw exactly why it sounded like she was drinking a glass of water. The girl no longer had a tongue.

  7

  Mr Morris's eyelids had flipped opened at the sound of the hotel door slamming shut. Several incidents soon followed that noise. The shattered plates were still on the floor but the imaginary two boys had thankfully left him alone. He shivered, due to lying on the floor, he also saw that the light outside had gone. He blinked away the blur and slowly lifted his head, his eyes searching for the kitchen clock. The shut door signalled that the married couple had left his hotel. At least, that's what he hoped. If they had returned, then Kevin was in big trouble.

  He dug his fingers into the back of his neck, trying to massage away the stiffness before he slowly got to his feet. “Dammit,” he muttered, when he saw the time. Kevin had been lying on his kitchen floor for over five hours. This really was trouble with a capital T.

  Once more the forces of chaos had conspired to find a way to ruin his routines. He'd missed a whole host of important tasks, thanks to his impromptu decision to go to sleep. The linen needed changing in three of the spare rooms, ready for the next guests, due in the morning. Next day's menu needed organising, he had also missed out on half of his cleaning schedule. Kevin staggered over to the door, pausing to look back at the mess on the floor.

  No matter how hard he tried to remember, he had absolutely no idea as to what triggered this seizure. He might remember snatches of the dreams as he worked, then again, he might not. There was far too much to do to let this worry him. He had enough worry piled on his head already.

  Kevin turned and softly closed the kitchen door, deciding to leave the smashed plates until he had the linen in the machines. He could hear Mrs Steadford's muffled laughter, followed by her husband telling to her be quiet. Judging from the following giggles, it wasn't an order that the woman would take seriously.

  Perhaps matters weren't as bad as he made out, after all. As soon as he found a convincing reason to lure those two drunken idiots back to his hotel, his worry about finding enough meat to feed his sister and her new play-toy would be over for a couple of months. By that time, his hotel will be packed out with holiday makers, tourists, walkers and business people.

  He felt a stirring in his loins. As well as the fresh meat, Kevin would have a play-toy all of his own. He couldn't wait to give Mrs Steadford her first test drive.

  Chapter Two

  Madeleine Courtney connects

  1

  The heavy rain battering the living room windows reminded Michael Sandhurst that yet again, he had failed to act upon his wife's dire prediction. She, little miss organised, had already seen the weather forecast and was now in the process of ringing the first of their friends, when he suggested that perhaps she was being a little rash? Since when did the fools at the Met Office get the weather right? Besides, had she forgotten that the Sanderson's were already on their way here? Their other friends might be cool with changing the house warming party to tomorrow but their best friends might take exception to the sudden change.

  His calm reasoning had done the trick, and thanks to him, the only people who had managed to arrive at the party were the Sanderson's, and that's only because they got here before the heavy rains turned the dirt track leading up to the farmhouse into a boggy marsh.

  Despite the poor turn out, his darling wife still insisted on ensuring her party went according to plan. Her plan, that is. Right now, she was in the kitchen with Maddie Courtney, their babysitter, organising the first wave of party food. Michael pulled the tab and took a sizeable mouthful of cold beer, still watching the rain batter the windows. Privately he wanted to keep most of the buffet wrapped up and chill it. This shitty weather wouldn't last all night. There was nothing to stop them from having another party tomorrow night. In the morning, he and Trevor Sanderson could always lay a few boards across the worst affected parts of the track.

  On this occasion, Michael kept his calm reason inside a barred cage. His lovely wife would have no doubt imploded if he had dared to suggest another solution. She had never been that great at coping with sudden plan changes, especially after it had been his idea in the first place to go ahead with the party, even after the weather warning.

  “You've picked up a right bargain here, Mickey.” His ex-business partner took a swig from his own can. “Seriously impressed.”

  “For crying out loud, you two!” hissed Fern Sanderson. “Jodie left the glasses on the table for a good reason.” she glanced towards the kitchen doorway before picking up the glasses and forcing them into the men's empty hands. “Come on, for her sake, stop acting like a pair of slobs and pour the beers into the glasses.”

  “I love it when you take command, Fern,” chuckled Michael.

  “Wanna swap?”

  Michael shook his head. He carefully poured the beer into the glass. “Trevor, you really do enjoy living on the knife edge, my man. Just look at that sour look you're receiving from your dazzling wife. If I got one of those looks, I'd be tempted to buy a codpiece.”

  Fern took the two empty beer cans and dropped them in Jodie's party bag, located in the hallway. His wife had even taped a sheet of A4 onto the side of the bag, just to make it all official. They had expected almost thirty guests tonight, with only five people here, Michael got the distinct feeling that this night was going to drag.

  2

  Even with the recent problems with Jodie, he still never regretted taking his family away from the capital. Oh sure, it had cost him a fortune to bring the doctors up to the farmhouse but it's not as if he couldn't afford it. As far as he was concerned, the single most reason for the beginning of Jodie's anxiety was having to live in that damp flat with those two vile men for most of her life.

  She'd get better. He knew he was right on this one. Her other family were off the radar, out of sight and out of mind. His lovely young wife wouldn't have to any of those lowlife scum-bags attempting to ruin her life ever again.

  Michael took a sip of his drink and made his way over to where Trevor had made himself comfortable, directly in front of the huge TV that dominated the pale wall, next to the window. It wasn't on, nor would it be, until the party was finished. Jodi
e had made that fact very plain.

  He sat on the other end of the black leather sofa, watching Trevor run his fingers across the TV remote. It must be killing him, not to be able to switch it on, especially with the match just about to start.

  His best friend would behave though, his wife would make sure of that, although, Michael guessed that Trevor would be visiting the toilet more often than he should. There might even be the occasional cheering erupting from the little boy's room as well.

  “You really are one lucky bastard, Mickey. This place is awesome.” He reluctantly removed his hand from the TV remote. The only thing I can't get used to is the lack of noise.”

  “You're about as subtle as a boot in the face, Trevor,” said Fern. She turned to Michael. “You won't mind if my childish husband checks the score?”

  “Of course I don't mind, Fern.”

  These two were his rock, his support. Without Fern and Trevor, he didn't believe that he would have been able to make it this far without ending up in prison. Five years ago, he had fallen in love. Both his mother and his father were overjoyed with the news, especially his mother. She had been trying to marry off her eldest son for almost ten years now, with no success. The joy quickly turned to tears when Michael told the pair of them that his love was a lowly cleaner who worked on his father's vast estate.